First Time Meeting Jay Leno

Jay Leno regularly tops lists detailing the best signers in Hollywood, year after year. Leno is renowned for being great to collectors, religiously stopping night after night upon exiting to sign for fans and collectors after taping "The Tonight Show." I had met David Letterman but never his NBC counterpart so I really was looking forward to meeting Jay this afternoon (3/12/2010).

"The Tonight Show" tapes from 4:00-5:00 PM so we arrived around 4:45 to catch everyone on the way out. Once the show was over, guests Dakota Fanning and Katharine McPhee drove past the large group of collectors waiting. Another collector told me that typically only 4 or 5 collectors are seeking autographs after tapings. However, with the popularity of Fanning and her new movie "The Runaways" combined with the draw power of McPhee, there were probably at least 20 collectors on this day. Luckily for us, the crowd thinned out considerably after the guests departed and there were only a handful of us waiting for Jay Leno. After about 15 minutes, we spotted a Red Lamborghini speeding towards us. Leno pulled to a stop, opened the gull wing door and said to us, "How's everyone doing?" He then proceeded to take item after item, placing his autograph on our photographs. He was nice, even commenting on one of my photos, "Hey! There's my Buick" as it was a shot of Leno with one of his treasures from his world famous car collection. When Leno started out signing, he was also adding a caricature of himself in addition to his autograph. As time went on, Leno continued to sign but started dropping the caricature from the autograph and the signatures became more and more illegible. This is a real challenge as Leno's autograph is not real legible or complete to begin with, often simply resembling a "J" followed by an "L." This first meeting was quite successful as both my sister and I each got four autographs apiece from Leno. Leno then took the time to pose for pictures with those who asked, smiling and flashing a peace sign with his left hand. He may be receiving a lot of flack in the "Tonight Show Debacle" but Leno is the consummate professional and a class act. It's not everyday that you find an A-lister who will patiently take time to not only sign autographs but do multiples and generously pose for pictures afterwards! Jay, it was a lot of fun meeting you and you're the best when it comes to signing.